Dd.033009 Gp.863
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comparable in severity to Hong Kong's 1950 legislation.
Cyprus legislation, on the other hand, was much less
severe; this frew a distinction between the use of
explosives with intent to cause death or injury to
any person or persons (which carried the death
penalty) and possession or use with intent to damage
property (which carried life imprisonment).
* For our part, we have taken a look at the
Rhodesian legislation because on a number of
occasions we have publicly castigated Rhodesia
as a police state and referred in very critical
terms to certain objectionable features/of its
legislation.
There is no emergency legislation on
this particular subject which is governed by an
ordinance in the substantive law enacted in 1963.
This provides the mandatory death penalty for
offences of causing or attempting to cause (by use
of petrol, explosives etc.) injury, death or damage
to:-
(a) persons;
(b) residential property;
(c) other property and vehicles in which
there were in fact/ persons present at the
time of the offence (even though the
accused did not know it).
The penalty for possession is twenty years. We feel
that Ministers may not be able to ignore the fact that
they are being asked to sanction a penalty that is
more severe than the Rhodesian law provides, in view
of the propaganda advantage this would give the Smith
regime. It is doubtful whether any effective play
could be made by us of the points that the Hong Kong
penalty was an emergency provision of temporary
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